Leckie: Fixture pile-up means Callum McGregor had to choose Celtic over Scotland

POINT where you want the ball, stroll into space to collect it.

Pop it five yards to a mate, point where you want it next.

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Repeat for 90 minutes, walking around with your head on a swivel, while the opposition are running like maniacs to try and pin you down.

Take a touch 30 yards out. Have a look up. Realise there’s no home shirt within five yards, unwrap a protein bar, eat half of it and put the rest down your sock for later.

Look up again. Realise there’s still no home shirt within five yards. Ping one in the far corner.

That was Callum McGregor at Easter Road, pit-patting through his first game since quitting Scotland to give himself more downtime between club commitments.

And maybe thinking that if only he got to play this Hibs team every week, he could have won 200 caps with a cigar on.

As for Steve Clarke, looking down from the directors box, he must have been asking himself the same question that’s bugged every Tartan Army footsoldier since the news broke.

How come a guy this good, this fit, with this much footballing intellligence, doesn’t want to be in our team any more?

More to the point, how do we replace who he is as well as what he does?

Because that’s the problem for our national team now. Not just finding someone who can fill the same holding midfield position, but someone with McGregor’s experience, brain, awareness and that ability of his to find space when everyone else is bumping into each other.

All those qualities were on show in Leith, with the added bonus for Celtic of that beautifully-struck second goal.

It must have been painful for Clarke to watch, knowing he’s lost someone so key from his Nations League squad.

But for Brendan Rodgers, there can only have been joy and relief that he’ll never have to loan his leader out again.

This season more than any other, that’s going to matter so much, not only to Celtic but to dozens of other clubs with jam-packed schedules to negotiate.

Last season, Celts faced six Champions League group games and their European campaign was done.

This season, it’s a minimum of eight league games, then the possibility of two more in a play-off round to try and reach the knockout stages.

With that much extra football to shoehorn in, something has to give.

You can bet that McGregor will be far from the only guy around Europe who decides, reluctantly, that it has to be their international career.

If he made himself available for Scotland this season, it would mean six more high-level matches between now and Christmas, three of them away.

I know for certain that at least one club down south, who have qualified for Europe this season, have been putting pressure on a Scotland player to cut down on his international duties.

I don’t doubt others are doing exactly the same.

And who can blame them, given what’s at stake?

Who could blame gaffer Rodgers if he chose to lean on McGregor — which isn’t to suggest that he did — to make him realise the possibility at 31 of his body caving in at some point?

Who would be surprised if he’d taken his captain aside and promised him the keys to the house in Majorca during those international breaks?

Fact is, Celtic can’t afford to be without the man known as CalMac when the Champions League cranks up.

Fact is, he might have been Mr Metronomic for more than a decade, but that foot injury which kept him out last spring will play on his mind.

What if it happens again because I push myself too hard?

What if I get injured against Poland or Portugal and leave my club in the lurch?

That’s the pressure top players are under these days.

When there’s a domestic league to win, European fortunes to be chased, a monster new World Club Cup for the top-ranked to aim at, plus the newly-condensed Nations League followed by World Cup qualifiers, rest and recuperation become a luxury rather than the necessity they should be.

Take a look at last season across Europe’s top leagues. See how many big-hitters either lost form, or struggled with injuries off the back of playing a winter World Cup that led straight back into full-on club action, and then knocked on into a shorter summer than usual.

That’s the future, one of year-round football at the top level, a future that will see fewer and fewer teams able to play their strongest elevens when the chips are down, and which will therefore short-change fans.

So don’t be surprised if more and more clubs start encouraging stars to remember where their bread’s buttered.

Don’t be surprised if more and more countries start having to fill the kind of hole that McGregor leaves in our set-up.

This game we love is eating itself.

And its eyes are way bigger than its belly.

THERE’S no question that the Ibrox Effect has been worth a goal of a start time and again for Rangers in Europe this past few years.

Now, can Hampden produce the same din? The same passion? Can it induce the same fear factor in visiting players?

That’s down to the fans. If they want their team to make it to the Champions League play-offs, they will need to turn the volume up to 11 at their temporary home when Dynamo Kyiv come calling on Tuesday night.

They don’t want to be there. It’s no secret many of them would rather throw jumpers down for goalposts in the Albion car park than give the SFA their dosh.

And thousands were gone long before Jack Butland made a save against Motherwell on Saturday that spared them from a second league draw on the bounce.

So it will be fascinating to see just how close they can come to turning the Dynamo showdown into a proper home game.

ST MIRREN and Kilmarnock fans will pack into Glasgow Airport this week, both heading for huge occasions in Norway.

Question is, will either lot touch back down again with their teams still in Europe?

It’s going to be tough, for sure.

The Buddies took an absolute battering for long spells of the home leg against Brann Bergen, and it’s to their eternal credit that they somehow clawed out a 1-1 draw thanks to Toyosi Olusanya’s 90th-minute strike.

Killie? They needed a last-gasp leveller of their own to make sure they go to Tromso still level in the tie.

Gun to my head, I’d say they have the better chance of making it to the Conference League play-off round.

But here’s hoping that Stephen Robinson and Derek McInnes are both able to mastermind famous victories for their clubs and for the country.

The hundreds who have dug deep for their second foreign trip in a matter of weeks deserve something special to celebrate.

MEMO to whoever takes over as Raith Rovers manager.

You’d better take them up. Or you’ll be emptied for sure.

What else is there to think after the way Ian Murray was treated by the Stark’s Park board?

He took them to a play-off final against Ross County after pushing Dundee United all the way in the title race, yet they got shot of him one game into the new league campaign.

Word is that they had been worried about performances since the turn of the year.

But if coming that close to the Premiership is worrying, just wait until they have a bad season.

Sure, it’s the board’s choice who sits in the dugout. Who knows, maybe they will be proved right if a new guy comes in and takes the place up another notch.

But surely if they weren’t happy with Murray, the time to part company was the summer?

PS: If anyone had money on Dundee being 3-0 up at half-time against Hearts and St Johnstone to win by the same score at Killie, enjoy Barbados.

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